Page 44 of The Secret
Friday, June 21, 2019
The next day, a message from Boni appears on my phone telling me he’s tracked down two people from Dan’s department whom he’s arranged to meet at the café in the university this afternoon. He’s also matched the company that paid Dan’s bills to the Horizon Holdings I found on the outskirts of Harare. He asks if I want to ride along with him to visit the place, and I text back a yes with shaking hands. An hour later a rusty, beaten-up old car pulls into the curb outside my hostel and, as we pull out into crazy traffic, he tells me that Dan’s phone records came through before he left. The last call he made was one to me from Zimbabwe, thennothing since June 11th, which is … wow … I don’t know what it is except extremely odd. I guess it means that Dan’s not just ignoring my calls, but it worries me more. Unless he went out and got another phone, of course. But … but … why would he do that?
When we get to the industrial park, the grass is growing up through the concrete of the empty parking lot next to a four-story office block. We head over and peer through a grimy ground-floor window—there’s a dirty carpet and two dusty-looking desks and an old filing cabinet but, otherwise, it’s completely empty. Boni looks around at the four other buildings on the estate that are in varying states of disrepair. There are a few cars dotted around nearer some of the other buildings.
“Come on, let’s go and see if we can find anyone and ask some questions.”
We walk across the parking lot, and then skirt a couple of other buildings, peering in and finding one or two occupied offices. A couple of people look up from their desks. The third building has what I assume is a security guard sitting at a makeshift reception desk inside, so we head in. It’s a hot and grimy space, and the guy couldn’t look more bored if he tried.
Boni raises his chin in greeting and hands over his card. “We’re looking for a company called Horizon Holdings. My information tells me that they’re based in the end unit.”
The guy narrows his eyes on him. “There are hundreds of companies based here.”
“Hundreds?” Boni says, frowning and staring out the window at the buildings we’ve just walked past.
“Yeah. Landlord runs a virtual address service from here.” He indicates a bank of mailboxes all along one wall that I’d totally missed. There are literally hundreds of them, white numbered boxes running from the floor to the ceiling. My stomach drops.
“You mean these companies aren’t physically here?” I say.
He shakes his head.
Boni cocks his head. “Have you worked here long?”
“Ten years.”
“And how does this work?” He gestures to the white boxes.
The guard shrugs. “The mail comes in, I sort it into the boxes.”
“And do people collect it?” Boni asks.
“Sometimes. Sometimes it gets scanned and forwarded on.”
“And if we wanted to find out about the mail for a particular company?”
The guy shrugs again. “You’ll have to ask the landlord about that.”
Boni purses his lips. “Okay. If anyone comes in asking about Horizon Holdings’ mail, could you let me know? Happy to pay a reward if it leads to anything.”
The guard writes Horizon Holdings on the back of the card, then looks at Boni. “Why you interested?”
“Missing person case,” he says, and the guard nods.
“Lotta that around here.”
“Really?” I pipe up.
He shrugs. “Gangs, drugs, crime. People get sucked in. Disappear. A body turns up in the river.”
Oh shit. Nausea roils in my gut.
“Is that true?” I say as we head out of the office and across the hot concrete back to Boni’s car.
He shrugs. “No more than any other city in Africa, I’d say.”
As he settles behind the wheel, Boni calls the landlord and explains that he’s a PI investigating a missing person case. When he asks about Horizon Holdings, he puts the phone on speaker and the landlord says he’ll check his records. And there’s quiet on the line for a while, but eventually his voice comes back. “That company’s been registered there for six years. No forwarding email or mailing address,” he says.
Boni frowns. “And why wouldn’t they supply that?”
